Dutchess Dirt

A gardening newsletter from:

Issue #150, December 2019

7 GARDEN TO ADD TO YOUR HOLIDAY WISH LIST (Because You've Been a Very Good Gardener this Year)

By Chris Ferrero, Master Gardener Volunteer

As you clean up your garden tools for next season, consider taking an objective look at your collection and making some changes that will delight you come spring. After all, your yard work needs to be rewarded!

And there’s no time like the present. With holiday gifting approaching, you may want to add new tools to your wish list. I've assembled a few ideas with the help of Master Gardener colleagues:

1. A Master Gardener favorite: The Hori Hori Knife.

This one should take a special prize for the devotion it’s earned from Master Gardeners. If you want to carry just one lightweight tool around your landscape, this is a really versatile one. Sometimes called a soil knife or weeding knife, it’s sharp on one side and serrated on the other. Its smooth edge can slice through small stems, twine, and bags of mulch, while the serrated edge does tougher duty, even cutting through the tangled roots of perennials you’ve lifted for division, and the tip can precisely draw shallow trenches for seeding. Pocket this tool to harvest root vegetables and cut peppers from the vine, slice through unwanted foliage and saw small branches, pop out weeds, and transplant delicate seedlings. In fact, it’s my go-to bulb planter, because it digs soil and measures depth at the same time. Many brands are widely available from garden centers and online, from about $20.

December 2019 Page 1

2. A safe and versatile replacement for the .

Particularly if you have a sloped yard, chances are you’ve dumped a wheelbarrow while hauling something heavy and unwieldy, and maybe hurt yourself in the process. (Two handles needing a lift over one wheel, plus an aging back…duh.) Many intelligent alternatives in garden carts can safely out- perform your wheelbarrow. What to look for: Two large air- filled wheels, a u-shaped handle so it can be pulled or pushed, and a lightweight, heavy-duty poly bed deep enough to hold loose material and shaped for dumping, but also with a flat bottom to keep pots stable. Pictured above: Mine is a Green Thumb, available from local hardware stores, but it is also available for about $70 as the Yard Rover from Home Depot and Amazon.

3. Garden gloves that work as hard as you do.

Yes, there’s a place for the $3 gloves from the local discount stores – they’re practically disposable. But you can really get down to business – and up the enjoyment – if you’ve got well- designed, sturdy gloves that are worth throwing in the washer, year after year. Particularly valuable are the gauntlet gloves that protect your wrists and forearms from thorns, brambles, prickers, spiky branches and sharp grass blades, the gloves that deprive me of all excuses from garden maintenance. A great source is Womanswork, a local, woman-owned business that grew from the concept of well-designed gloves. My favorite gloves are the exquisitely soft, pearl-gray goatskin version of those pictured, which I love for fall and spring clean-up. Pictured are Garden of Paradise Arm-Saver Gloves, $34 from Womanswork.com and garden centers.

4. that don't require the upper body strength of The Hulk.

I will forever be thankful to my intrepid gardening friend Judi Smith for this lead. We were sharing garden chores at the local library when I spied these loppers in her tool bag. Yes, in her tool bag - They are just 15" long and amazingly lightweight. A quick demo proved that Fiskars' new gear technology give these featherweight pruners the power of my much bigger, heavier traditional loppers, using a lot less upper-body strength. We Master Gardeners don't endorse brands, but it’s hard to imagine any other lopper winning the Ease-of-Use Commendation from the Arthritis Foundation®. Fiskars features many sizes and styles - Try them out in the gardening aisle of your local hardware store, Home Depot or Lowes.

December 2019 Page 2

5. Snips, the right-sized hand pruners for smaller jobs.

And speaking of wasting energy on tools that are too big for the job... I'm sure you fall back on a pair of favorite hand-pruners for everyday jobs. But even hand-pruners are overkill for work that can be done with smaller, defter movement, and less hand fatigue, on a wide variety of herbaceous (vs. woody) plants. We MG's use these palm/pocket-sized snips for all kinds of greenhouse work, propagating and primping babies for our annual plant sale. But every gardener should have a pair or two around for harvesting herbs and green beans, selectively cutting flower stems for the vase, deadheading perennials and thinning vines. Many brands are widely available, but Fiskars offers several models including one with curved bypass blades, on the same display as the loppers above, from about $12 at hardware and Big Box stores.

6. The New Garden Trug: Multitasker Extraordinaire.

This is not your grandmother’s garden trug. Made from rugged polyethylene in the most wonderful colors, and available in at least 3 sizes, Tubtrugs are made to haul everything from harvested veggies to sodden clumps of sod for disposal. For springtime container planting, I use a small one to mix soil with compost and granular fertilizer, then fill it with a couple gallons of water to finish off those containers. (Because the handles squeeze together, you can carry them in one hand…or two in two hands!) I’ll take a large one out to the garden with my pruning tools, and fill it with branches and deadheads, then carry it to dump the refuse into the compost pile. I’ll nest a few in my cart when I go to divide perennials; they’re great for storing/watering divisions until you can transplant them. About $13 to $17 from local garden centers and online sources like Amazon and Gardeners’ Supply.

7. The Mini you can use to smash through Hudson Valley shale.

Face it: If you are planting a garden anywhere in the Hudson Valley and can dig more than 3” before striking hardpan, you consider yourself very, very lucky. Many of our subdivisions have been planted on old farm acreage with very little topsoil left on top of the shale. When we built our house, I got tired of waiting for my husband who could swing a full-size pickaxe every time I wanted to plant a shrub or create a bed. Turned out all I needed was this mini version in my bucket. From your knees you can use the pick end to shatter hardpan, and the end to scrape out soil from the hole. A very handy replacement for your mother’s , but also great for weeding ground cover, and for trenching. Many designs and brands, but may be easier to locate online than in garden centers. Pictured, 15” Fitool forged pickaxe, about $16 from Amazon,

December 2019 Page 3

By Joyce Tomaselli, CCEDC Community Horticulture Resource Educator

In September a group of CCEDC Master Gardener Volunteers made a trip to gardens in Pennsylvania including the Chanticleer estate on the Main Line in Wayne. They were delighted with many aspects of the garden; the imaginative designs, use of texture and form, incorporating movement as well as rich vibrant colors. They raved about some unfamiliar plants such as the bright orange Lions’ Ear (Leonotis leonurus) and Climbing Rex Begonia (Cissus discolor) on the walls. But they liked the Ruin Garden best. Pennsylvania Railroad’s Main Line ran from the center of Philadelphia westward in the 1830s through several towns with large tracts of land which attracted the city’s social elite to build elaborate country homes. The area is still Philadelphia's most affluent and fashionable region. In 1913 Chanticleer was for built for Christine and Adolph Rosengarten Sr. as a county retreat to escape the city’s summer heat. An addition in 1924 converted the home into a year-round residence. In 1933 the neighboring Minder House was purchased for their son Adolph Jr. In 1935 they built a home for their daughter Emily on another adjoining property. Adolph Jr. maintained the main home as it was when the family lived there and upon his death in 1990 left all three properties for the education of the public. The gardens are open to the public April through November and tours of the main house are available by reservation. Emily’s home is being used for offices and classrooms. Adolf Jr.’s home is now the site of the Ruin Garden, which many of the MGV visitors admired.

The Ruin is a folly (from the French word folie, “foolishness”). In architectural terms a folly is a costly, generally nonfunctional building erected to enhance a natural landscape. Follies first gained popularity in England, and they were particularly in vogue during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

At Chanticleer the original plan was to partially dismantle the Minder house and turn it into a ruin, but for safety reasons the only part left of the original house is the foundation and a tile "rug". Using material from the original home for the Ruin Garden gives the impression that the original home simply fell into disrepair.

There are three rooms. The first is a "Great Hall" with a fountain shaped like a large sarcophagus that rests on a mosaic "rug" of tile, granite and slate. (Or could that be a banquet table?) Plants are growing on and through the walls.

December 2019 Page 4

The next room is the “Library" where fallen “books” entitled Woods, Thank Flora and Moss are sculpted of stone. Succulents such as ‘Agave attenuata’ are used like artwork on the walls.

An exposed wooden post with an embedded chain holds tiny buckets potted with plants which look about to move, as if they are on a waterwheel.

The final and perhaps most startling room is the "Pool Room” which features a lovely fountain. As you move closer you realize there are faces made of marble gazing up from the depths of the water.

There are seven horticulturists at Chanticleer, each responsible for the design, planting, and maintenance of an area that has its own feel yet while still being part of the whole. For example, the Tennis Court, Ruin, Gravel Garden, and Pond Garden focus on hardy woody and herbaceous perennials. The Teacup Garden and Chanticleer Terraces feature seasonal plants and bold-textured tropical and subtropical plants. There are Shade Gardens, a Gravel Garden, Teacup Garden, Tennis Court and cut flower and vegetable gardens. Even the parking lot has a theme - “low maintenance”’.

Chanticleer is a botanical garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation, preservation and display of a wide range of plants labelled with their proper botanical names for educational purposes. They explain however, that rather than labelling every plant, which could distract from the visual effect of the gardens, they encourage visitors to speak with the gardeners or peruse detailed plants lists provided in clever handmade boxes on site or online. Click here to view the lists and the cute boxes! There is also an excellent tab on their web site for each week: What’s in Bloom. Learn more at ChanticleerGarden.org.

Photos courtesy of MGVs Rosemary Daniels and Alison Granucci.

December 2019 Page 5

JUST IN TIME, DIGGING COLEUS AND CANNA

Each year we grow plants in our CCEDC Nursery Bed for the following year’s Spring Plant Sale. Most of the plants are Coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides). These tender annuals are usually dug in mid-September to ensure they are growing vigorously enough to be successfully harvested for cuttings which will be grown under lights all winter. If temperatures fall below the mid-50’s they start to go dormant and drop their leaves. This year we needed to cover them with floating row covers a few times keep them ‘happy’ until MGVs could take cuttings for rooting. They are growing nicely now.

The other plants in the Nursery Bed are Canna, (Canna x generalis). These grow from large rhizomes and are hardy to zone 7. In cooler zones, like ours, they need to be dug and stored for the winter. Before we dig Canna, we like to wait for a hard frost. This causes the leaves to dry and makes it easier trim them off and to dry the rhizomes for successful storage. This year we didn’t have a hard frost in Millbrook until late November. When we did though, an intrepid trio of MGVs Pat Murphy, Cathy Poluzzi and Gordon Riggs dug them, cleaned the soil from them and laid them out to dry in our empty greenhouse (which has lots of air circulation) for a week They are now tucked into paper bags with layers of newspaper and safety stored in a basement, as a Nor’easter howls outside.

WEBSITES TO VISIT MSU Overwintering Tender Garden Plants NYS IPM Spotted Lanternfly Web Page NYS IPM Travelling for the Holidays? Winter Mulch Advice Penn State Extension experts: Risk of spotted lanternfly on Christmas trees is minimal Apple sleuths hunt for varieties believed extinct

SUBMIT UPCOMING EVENTS Would you like information on an upcoming gardening event to be shared in this newsletter? Send an email to Nancy Halas at [email protected] or Joyce Tomaselli [email protected] by the 25th of each month to be included in the next month’s newsletter. Please include the date, time, location, a short description, cost and contact information for more details.

December 2019 Page 6

MONTHLY ID QUIZ

The elm stumps in the foreground were a This tree was photographed in New York City lovely dining table for the black walnuts on Nov. 15. Do you know what type of tree it from the tree in the background. Who done is? it? The squirrels of course.

Need Soil pH Testing? Need Lawn or Plant Diagnosis? Have any gardening questions?

The Horticulture Hotline, is closed for the season. Questions can be submitted through our website at www.CCEDutchess.org/gardening Click on Contact Us and select the topic of Gardening.

Samples for identification or diagnosis can be submitted Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:00 pm all year long. There is a $15 fee for samples. Visit our Horticulture Diagnostic Lab website for reliable resources and information on our services.

HELP SPREAD THE DIRT! Please forward a copy to anyone you think might be interested. To be added or removed from our e-mail list, or submit upcoming gardening events, contact Nancy Halas at [email protected], www.ccedutchess.org.

Websites mentioned in Dutchess Dirt are provided as a courtesy to our readers. Mention of these websites does not imply endorsement by Cornell University, Cornell Cooperative Extension or by the author.

Cornell Cooperative Extension is an employer and educator recognized for valuing AA/EEO, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities and provides equal program and employment opportunities. The programs provided by this agency are partially funded by monies received from the County of Dutchess.

December 2019 Page 7